It is well known to use a plastic hose to conduct fluid from one hard conduit to another hard conduit because soft plastic is readily bent to fit in places where a hard conduit would have to be made extremely accurately to fit. Likewise connections are readily made with soft plastic hoses that are more difficult to complete with parts that are hard. Where the conduit must carry a warm or hot fluid, it is also known to place a metallic coil spring having a uniform diameter and evenly spaced turns outside of the plastic conduit to give it sufficient stiffness to maintain its form when it is softened by heat and when it is curved. Curving a tube tends to flatten it unless support is provided.
One problem in such connections is the integrity of the joint between the hard conduit such as a plastic or metal pipe and the soft plastic conduit. One solution to that problem is to use any of a variety of hose clamps. However, that is an extra part to be purchased and installed. Applicant has discovered a way to make the stiffening spring serve as a hose clamp and at the same time make a connection sufficiently resistant to separation as to meet Underwriters Laboratories standards for the safety of a connection carrying hot coffee. For the purposes of illustration, the connection of this invention is illustrated as it would be used to secure the ends of plastic connections in a coffee percolator carrying hot water from the reservoir to the metal conduit in which the water is heated and from the heating conduit to the coffee basket where the heated water will perculate through the coffee grounds. Such a connection is old so far as the metal heating tube, the soft plastic conduit, and the coil spring stiffener for the soft conduit are concerned but is new in the modification of the coil spring stiffener to form clamps for the plastic hoses.